Merchant sailing vessels 3

These are a collection of photographs that were found in a leather suitcase that had been under four feet of water for several days when my parent’s house was flooded in 1993. They were dried out but, needless to say, they are in not in their original state. I have put them together in small galleries for those who are interested in the history of the Westcountry trading ketches and also the history of Bude.

They were collected by my grandfather and, I believe, some he inherited from his father, during his years as master of the Ceres, a Westcountry trading ketch. I have no record of whether he took any of these photographs himself but I note that most of them are of ships in ports that Ceres would have visited. The captions are copies of the notes on the back of the photographs – I have added the punctuation.

‘Uncle Ned’ of Dublin, built 1867 by Robertson, Ipswich. The small schooner alongside is ‘Brackley’ of Liverpool, 68 tons. She (‘Brackley’) went ashore at St Patrick’s Bridge, Kilmore and became a total wreck as recently as September 30th (no year given)

The E.R. Sterling was a American six-masted barquentine, built 1883 at Harland & Wolff, Belfast, as the four-masted ship Lord Wolseley. Lord Wolseley delivered to Irish Shipowners Co. (T. Dixon & Sons), Belfast. 1898 sold to J.C. Tidemann & Co., Bremen, was reduced to barque rig and renamed Columbia. 1904 sold to C.E. Peabody, Vancouver, was remasted and rerigged to a six-masted barkentine and renamed Everett G. Griggs. 1910 sold to E.R. Stirling, Blaine, WA, and was renamed E.R. Sterling. Broken up at Sunderland in 1928. (My gratitude to Bob for identifying the ship – details from commons.wikimpedia.org)

Unidentified

Unnamed ketch

‘Via’ of Brixham, built 1864 by Upham, Brixham

‘Volant’ of Kirkwall, built 1867 by Geddie, Banff, was damaged by fire 1923 at the tail of The Bank when on passage from Dublin to Belfast. Still running.